Star India bets Rs. 1,200 crore on Hotstar

Star India, which bagged the India Premier League rights for TV and digital broadcast in a Rs 16,347 crore deal, is placing similar bets on its over- the-top (OTT) platform Hotstar to take on rivals like Amazon's Prime Video and Netflix. The broadcaster has infused over Rs 1,200 crore in Novi Digital Entertainment, which runs Hotstar, in the last six months through two resolutions, documents filed with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) show.

The company passed two resolutions approving the investment of Rs 710 crore and Rs 522 crore, respectively for Hotstar. Star India will own digital rights for IPL which is expected to bring a new set of digital viewers to Hotstar and eventually boost its subscription base.

Recently, the US-based e-commerce major Amazon which is also pushing heavily its contents platform, won the bid to stream ATP tour tennis exclusively outbidding Sky Network.

Star's aggressive investment in Hotstar, which streams one of the most popular TV series, Game of Thrones, in India, comes at a time when rivals like Amazon and Netflix are investing in the market to gain market share and boost subscriptions. While Hotstar already streams significant amount of local content here, Amazon Prime and Netflix have started focusing on creating Indian and regional content for the domestic market apart from their global offerings.

An email sent by TOI to Star India spokesperson regarding the fresh investment in Hotstar did not elicit a response.

Among the lot, Amazon's pricing has been the most aggressive where it is offering Rs 499 annual subscription while Netflix charges Rs 500 per month. Hotstar started a monthly subscription programme of Rs 149 but it recently but recent reports suggested it has also started offering an annual and nine month subscriptions.

As per industry experts, majority of investments by Star India would be in the are of improving its core technology platform and creating local content. While Netflix has maintained it will continue its premium positioning in the market, Hotstar has benefited by bringing shows like Game of Thrones on its platforms.

All these platforms are actively in discussion with various production houses and independent film makers to create exclusive content for them. Voot, Ozee, SonyLiv are some of the other players in the space. Most of these platforms are advertisement driven for revenue even though Amazon Prime Video and Netflix rely largely on subscriptions for revenue in India. Amazon is believed to have allocated about Rs1,000-1,200 crore this year for its content business here , as reported by TOI earlier. Earlier this year, Hotstar was named the number one app in terms of monthly active usage as per survey by App Annie.